Canada ... population growth or lack thereof

Over the last few years it seems that I've hit the age where are a few jokes about singleness tossed in my direction from time to time. When around families with small children I've heard questions like "have we scared you off from having kids?" a number of times. I don't really take such questions seriously, but at the same time it sometimes still bothers me that they're asked - even if in a joking fashion. To be honest, I'm probably more positively inclined now to the idea of having kids at some point in the future than I was of the notion in the past.

The recent release of the latest Canadian census results have brought this idea to mind again. Some newspaper articles seem pleased by the growth, whereas others have sounded at least somewhat worried. Canadian population growth really only seems to be coming through immigration at this point, with the average Canadian woman having approximately 1.5 kids. This is a subject that occasionally comes to the forefront at work/school and there people seem to think of immigration as some sort of panacea. I, on the other hand, tend to agree with Tim Challies' assessment of the situation:

All-in-all, many Western nations, Canada among them, are effectively committing suicide--or at the very least are knowingly and willingly radically altering themselves. By refusing to have children, people are allowing their nations to decline. The low birthrates can only drive a nation downward. The Canada of the future will looking very little like the Canada of my childhood and the Canada of today. As native Canadians refuse to procreate, we will have to continue to encourage immigration in order to sustain our nation's economy. This will be increasingly important as the generation of baby boomers hits retirement age and expects the pensions they have been paying for for all the years. Someone has to be able to fund their retirement. But there will be fewer people to do so unless we encourage immigration. But this becomes a vicious cycle, for fewer people will immigrate to a nation when they know they will have to pay high taxes to fund social programs for people they do not know and care nothing about.